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Fingerstones

I thought i share some of my thoughts about fingerstones.

I got some very nice Ohira Uchigomori sword polishing quality !

Finger stones is bit difficult to choose because they are used for final finish on your knife or sword so they have to be of very best quality to not to destroy your finish after all that hard polishing !!

Here is 2 examples of bad and good Uchigomori

At the looks you cant see much differens but after use the bad one is very soft and fragile it will ruin your finish.

Uchigomori is a layer in Tenjyou strata so it is not name of the stone but just a layer, this layer is very good for fingerstones because it is soft and dose not have to much cutting power to ruin the finish so it is safest stone to use for fingerstones ! But very difficult to get a good one

First stone on top is very fine and sword polishing grade Uchigomori, one below is very bad uchigomori !

Bad one

Good one

Nakayma Fingerstones the best fingerstones i have tried so fare milky mirro finish and very smooth polish
This one is more for advance users very hard to make slurry but very stable and fast cutting stone it is not Uchigomori but harder Maruka Nakayama.

Ozuku super hard VERY difficult to use will scratch soft steel if not used correct but will leve super mirro polish, i use it very rare because its very easy to ruin your finish.

Part 2

Preparation:

It is very very importent to make good preparation befor using fingerstones !!
Take good time to prepare because it is last polish you dont want to ruin anything.
I use chisel to make my fingerstones from a big rock, then i flatten them on both sides with Atoma 140, then i flatten useable side with 600 grit and up to final natural i used.
You have to round all the conners and make sure that nothing sit lose on that small stones .

Now for polishing aria, it have to be very very clean in that room where you polish, so no dost or lose particles dont scratch your finish ! Make sure you have a lot of clean tissue papers reedy.

Ok here is Shigefusa Kasumi Mukimono 180mm with Patina
It will be my test knife:

Firs Ohira Uchigomori fingerstones:

It is medium hardnes for finerstones, my Shigefusa was very good polished befor i got patina so i dont have to start up with very soft fingerstone like Hakka or soft Ohira.

I am polishing only in one direction to get nice even scratche,
Before i was thinking to much about removing all scratches and it resulted that i got many scratches in all directions that is much easier to se then even and nice scratches in one direction ( i think that is Shigefusas sicret )

So here is the final result of Uchigomori i polished only one part of the blade to compare to Maruka fingerstones. It was only 2 min polish

Now you can clearly see that old jigane with many impurities Shigefusa use, they call it "clouds"

Now for Maruka Nakayama fingerstones:

They are much harder and do not relise any slurry, swarf only !

If someone wonder, it is my girlfriends nail polish on back of the stone to stabelise it more.

Here is with 3 min work harder stones need more time and you have to ad very little water, make sure that your mud do not dry out it can scratch the finish !!

Final result:

You can see that Nakayama maruka is much more brighter and more mirro, but stil haze and very good contrast between the steels.

Both finishes looks very good and its really depend on the knife and on the personal preference what finish you will choose for your knife. You can also use both one on uchigomori on soft steel and maruka on hard, that what sward polishers do.

But i am to laze and i take all Marukas on that one 3 min total

You can even out your finish by adding more mud or making more mud on your finishing stone then transfer it on your knife.
But still make sure all is very very clean and there are no big particles around that can mess all things up, THATS WHAT MAKE PEOPLE CRAZY